Flash Point

“I didn’t dream that a man got shot, Sergeant Russo. I saw him.”

“I’m sure it seemed real enough, Miss Santos. Just like my aunt’s dreams about those vampires seem real to her. But that doesn’t mean it was real.” Deciding to put an end to the nonsense, he stood. He was more than ready to get home to his Rosie, kick back in his chair with a brewsky and a bowl of gumbo to watch the game. “Maybe what you need is a good night’s sleep. If you’d like, I can have an officer escort you back to your hotel.”

She stood. “I don’t need an escort to my hotel, Sergeant,” she snapped, and there was nothing remotely girlish about the look she slanted at him. But the last thing he expected was for the lady to reach over and grab his arm.

“What the hell—”

“What I need is for you to stop wasting time thinking about kicking back in your easy chair, eating gumbo and drinking beer while you watch some dumb football game and try to find that man before it’s too late.”

Max jerked his arm free. He could feel the color drain from his face. He dropped back down to his chair. “How in the hell did you know that stuff?” he demanded, his voice a harsh whisper.

“I told you. I can see things, sense things.”

Sweet mother of God, he thought, shaken by her response. No, it couldn’t be, he reasoned. There had to be an explanation.

“Hey, Max. Everything okay over there?” Nuccio asked.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” he muttered before turning his attention back to the woman. He narrowed his eyes. “You had me going there for a minute. That stuff you just said about the gumbo and beer and the game, you were guessing, right?”

“No.”

“Then you must have heard me say something to one of the guys earlier,” he offered, wanting, needing to believe that’s what had just happened, even though for the life of him he couldn’t recall saying a thing about the gumbo to a soul.

“We both know I didn’t overhear you saying anything to anyone.”

“Then how…”

Kelly resumed her seat across from his desk. She clasped her hands together in that ladylike way women did and met his gaze evenly. “I tried to explain, Sergeant Russo,” she began, a weariness in her voice that matched her expression. “Sometimes when I touch a person or an object, I can see things.”

He looked down at his shirtsleeve where she had grabbed him only a few moments ago, then back up at her. “And when you touched me, you read my mind?”

“Not quite. It was more a case of reading what you were imagining. In this case, you were seeing yourself sitting in a big brown leather easy chair with your feet kicked up. The room had gold shag carpet and there was a small round table next to the chair with a bottle of beer on it. You were watching a football game on TV and you hit the pause button when a woman came into the room,” she told him. “She had red hair and she brought you a tray with a steaming bowl on it. She said the gumbo was hot, but that she didn’t want you using that as an excuse to have another beer.”

Max swallowed hard and tried to digest the fact that the woman had just described his living room and his wife. “That’s my wife, Rosie.” And Rosie was never going to believe him when he told her this story. After a moment, he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and started over. “Why don’t you describe that car for me again.”

Jack Callaghan ambled over to his police locker the next morning and the first person he saw was Sal Nuccio. Just what he didn’t need, Jack thought. After tossing and turning most of the night and feeling like shit over how he’d handled things with Alicia the previous evening, the last person he wanted to deal with this morning was Nuccio. The guy had been a pain in the ass since they were kids. And ever since he’d beaten Nuccio for the starting quarterback position in high school, the man never missed a chance to try to one-up him at everything from the type of car he drove to the women he dated, and now to see which one of them made detective second grade first. At thirty-three, the adolescent games had long lost any appeal for him. Unfortunately, Nuccio couldn’t say the same.

“Hey, Callaghan. You hear about all the excitement here last night?” Nuccio asked him.

“No,” Jack replied. Not bothering to even look at the guy and hoping he would just go away, Jack worked the combination on his police locker.

“Well, you missed it. Yes sirree, we had ourselves quite a show here at the station last night.”

Jack yanked open his locker. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t need to take my word for it. Ask some of the guys who were here busting their asses last night and pulling extra shifts while you and your partner got the night off.”

Irritated, Jack slid his gaze over to where Nuccio was leaning against the wall, nursing a cup of coffee. The guy fit the caricature of a lazy cop, Jack thought, from the beefy jowls and beer belly to the straining buttons on his jacket and the sloppy look of his clothes. “If you’ve got something to say, Nuccio, why don’t you just spit it out.”

“Just making an observation. That’s all.” He tossed his foam cup into the overflowing trash can and shoved away from the wall.

Determined not to let the guy get to him, Jack stowed his running shoes in his locker and made no comment. He’d learned from experience that there was no reasoning with Nuccio. What would be the point in telling the prick that the reason he and his partner had scored two days off was because they’d worked fourteen days straight and had cracked a three-year-old homicide case? Nuccio would only argue that it had been the Callaghan family name currying favor for him. Which was what he’d claimed to be the reason they were both competing for promotion to detective second grade, even though Nuccio had put in two years more on the force than Jack had. The truth was, his name being Callaghan hadn’t helped him one iota—a fact that the captain had made sure he understood the day he’d joined the force as a rookie.

“Besides, the way I see it, you and Vicious might have wrangled the night off, but you also missed out on all of the fun around here.”

Jack clipped his shield on his belt, then slammed the locker door shut. “If you say so.”

“It’s true,” Nuccio insisted, obviously irritated by his response. “Things were really hopping here last night and you missed it.”

“Hear that, Leon?” Jack called over to his partner, homicide detective Napoleon Jerevicious, affectionately known among his fellow officers as Vicious, the nickname he’d earned on the college and pro football fields. “Nuccio says we missed all the fun last night.”

Leon slammed his own locker shut. The former pro football running back, who had been both his partner and friend for the past two years, walked over to join him. “I don’t know about that. I had me a pretty good time last night. Tessa and I took the kids trick-or-treating. And after we put them to bed, we did some trick-or-treating of our own, if you get my drift.”

“Talk about lame,” Nuccio declared with a snort. “I’d have thought a hotshot former jock like you could find something better to do than chase after a couple of snot-nosed kids and bang your old lady.”

“Hey man, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Leon advised him, unfazed by the other man’s derisive tone.

“No way,” Nuccio replied. “I’ve got better things to do with my time. But anytime you get tired of palling around with Callaghan and want to have some real fun, you just let old Sal here know. And I’ll introduce you to a few of my ladies, make sure they show you a good time.”

“That’s real nice of you, Sal,” Leon said in that low, easygoing voice of his that still held a trace of his Arkansas roots despite the years he’d spent in New York playing football for the Jets.

“Anytime.” Nuccio puffed up his chest. “Just say the word and I’ll make a few calls, set something up for you.”

“I appreciate that,” Leon told him. “I really do. But the thing is, I’m afraid having you set me up with your ladies would be a problem.”

“Say, if you’re worried your old lady’s going to find out, don’t sweat it. These gals are discreet.”

“I’m sure they are, but that’s not the problem,” Leon explained.

Nuccio frowned a moment, then his eyes widened. “Holy shit! Don’t tell me you’ve never screwed around on your wife?”

“Come to think of it, no. I haven’t.”

“Hot damn, if that don’t beat all.” Nuccio let out a hoot. He slapped his leg. “Instead of calling you Vicious, they should call you Choirboy. What in the hell’s wrong with you, man? Here I am offering to cut you in on my female turf and you’re turning me down because you’re married?”

“Actually, that’s only one of the reasons I’m turning you down. The other reason is I don’t pay women for sex.”

Jack muffled a laugh. But the other guys hanging around the lockers didn’t. And as the whoops of laughter rumbled around the locker room, Nuccio’s face grew beet red. Jack almost felt sorry for him. Almost but not quite, since the jerk had been riding him for months now—ever since Jack had gotten a citation for his efforts in solving an eight-year-old murder that had languished in the cold-case files. A case to which Nuccio had once been assigned.

Nuccio glared up at the much taller Leon. “Up yours, pal.”

“No thanks,” Leon said, and flashed his pearly white teeth.

“Some sports hero you are. The only woman you’re making it with is your own wife.”

Leon’s smile widened. It was the smile of a man who was content with his life and with himself. A man who wasn’t going to be rattled by the barbs of some sorry ass jerk like Sal Nuccio. “Like I said, don’t knock it till you try it.”

“Or maybe you don’t have any choice, because the chicks aren’t impressed with washed-up football stars. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that you never were a babe magnet—not even during your playing days,” Nuccio continued with a laugh. “No wonder the chicks ignore you now.”